On Drinking: the Dark & Stormy (I)

In search of a winning combination

Author’s Preface: I’ve been trying for the past few years to improve the classic Dark and Stormy cocktail, that excellent combination of dark rum, ginger beer and lime. Serendipitously, some very good leads in the case were dropped in my lap earlier this month. This article started as a simple desire to taste test the proposed improvements and share my impressions. I wanted it to be a very short read (a fantasy, in retrospect). After thinking a lot about this concoction (and getting lost in the usual research gravity wells), it’s going to need multiple parts to address properly. Please enjoy part one of this multipart series.

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I’ve been drinking the rum/ginger beer+lime concoction known as a rum buck (or more popularly the Dark and Stormy) for something like 15 years. This cocktail is simple, a little rustic, and delicious. It also has a very cool name, but one I’ve noticed is also evocative of the most hackneyed way to start your novel, and I’ve started to consider that association instructive.

You can make them anywhere, so long as you’ve remembered something to slice the limes. You can use car keys in a pinch but please don’t let it come to that.

The Problem

To my dismay, the drink has slowly lost its luster for me in the last few years. Not because of the literary cliché (that’s new information I’m still processing). It’s just not as delicious to me as it once was. I thought my palate had changed, or the taste of the drink in my mind was just tinged with nostalgia and benefitted from an association with some very good times I’ve had. I used to be able to open a bottle of Bundaberg from my corner store and mix up one of these with some dark rum I had on hand¹ without much thought—consistent and satisfying whether you were having one or six of them. Now things are much more complicated. It’s just 3 ingredients, so it seemed like experimentation and personalizing the beverage was the best way to restore the drink to my remembered glory.

Then I discussed the issue with close friends and some of them became advisors in this matter. It wasn’t just my palate. We had a crisis and a shared problem on hand.

Culprit No. 1: Ginger Beer

At the suggestion of one of my advisors, we first suspected ginger beer quality was the issue. We surmised that the surging popularity of ginger beer (going from a niche mixer to everywhere in just a few years) meant production quality necessarily declined to keep up with market demand. Anecdotal and unfounded, but a good lead nonetheless. After all, mixology is highly subjective and all about personal preferences—we aren’t engaged in a hard science here. So I’m a few years into this problem and have tried the spectrum of widely available ginger beers and brews as the mixer for this drink. Reed’s, Q, Fever Tree, Gosling’s, Cock and Bull, Barritt’s, Fentiman’s and anything else me or my advisors in this matter could find. Mixed results (obligatory pun), but nothing that hit me with the simplicity of true improvement/restoration of the flavor profile I’ve been chasing.

Culprit No. 2: Dark Rum

I have also tried switching up the dark rums.² You just need something aged enough to sit nicely with the ginger beer. I’ve tried more expensive rums like Diplomatico and Plantation to see if the premium flavor profiles might do something. I’ve also tried obscure, smaller production rums like Admiral Rodney from St. Lucia. I’ve also looked into the wider universe of rum mules, or rum bucks as they are sometimes called (a “buck” or a “mule” being a catchall term for a cocktail prepared with ginger beer). I’ve tried the Bermuda classic formulation (Gosling’s Black Seal and Barritt’s Ginger Beer) and it’s good enough (I almost gave up and just settled on this variant), but the flavor profile stops short of what I’m chasing. In my view, it’s too sweet and not complex enough. Nobody bother coming for me over this take. I’m sure it tastes great in Bermuda (context and sense of place always helps with something like this).

I’ve also tried amplifying the ingredients to see if that did anything. I came up with a much stronger version where all the ingredients are turned up in intensity. With extra strength ginger beer, an entire half lime pressed in, some orange bitters for dimension and a higher ABV dark rum (all in double pours), the result is a very heavy, slur inducing beverage. It’s good on its own terms (it’s for personal use, I’ve never served this or recommended it to anyone), but it’s missing that refreshing zip of the version in my memory, where everything is sparkling and balanced.

Lead No. 1: Welcome to The Ministry of Rum

Suddenly and with no forewarning, I received an invitation from one of my rum crisis advisors to a tasting event hosted by Edward Hamilton. Hamilton is something of a rum impresario and wizard: author of the out-of-print Rums of the Eastern Caribbean, owner/distributor of the Hamilton line of rums he personally sources, and operator of the charmingly aging (perhaps defunct?) MinistryofRum.com. He does not disappoint in person—seemingly uncomfortable and needing a bit of stage managing in front of larger groups, but otherwise very focused on the chemistry and upholding the traditions of these spirits (and very engaging in one-on-one or in smaller groups). This is a man you want to drink with (and I think his rum recommendations deserve my trust until I receive information to the contrary).

Was a delight to see him open with a Ti Punch, his favorite beverage and the subject of my first feature in “On Drinking”

As a result of these tastings, I will be picking up a bottle Hamilton 86 Demara Rum to apply to my rum crisis. The Jamaican Firefly from the pictured menu is basically what I’m after, although this recipe used ginger syrup rather than ginger beer, so it’s an extra variable to evaluate. Here’s also his suggested recipe for a rum mule, so there’s some early promise in trying to draft off of Hamilton’s expertise here:

The YouTube ad I was served before my most recent playback of this video was for one of those auto rescue tools you use to smash your own windshield to escape your submerged vehicle. Given the ABV involved (and potential legal jeopardy per footnote 2 below), it feels appropriate.

Lead No. 2: Homebrew

The newly opened NeueHouse in Venice offered the second major break in the case. Their bar makes many of its mixers in house, including a ginger beer (their Arnold Palmer is also delicious, but I’ve definitely felt awkward watching the bartender’s labor that goes into freshly pressing lemons for my lemonade). I got a little too excited when I learned they make their own ginger beer and asked them to make me one mixed with dark rum. They came back with one using Bacardi 8 (they claim they don’t have any dark rum), which was disappointing.

This whole scenario was also my fault for trying to force this drink out of an establishment that’s not really set up to produce it. NeueHouse has a bar and mixers, but I don’t think they are claiming/trying to be a full bar in any meaningful sense.³ If you drink enough of these, you are also accustomed to this situation. I regret this order as often as I enjoy it when I’m out (sacrifices must be made in the name of progress). You’ll want to change your order immediately if (i) you find yourself explaining any aspect of this drink to a bartender or (ii) if you get the vibe that there’s a limited menu that is executed well and you’d be leaving that zone at your own hazard (which seems to be the deal at NeueHouse). But really you should be making these at home and not ordering them at a bar or restaurant anyway (the different ways this drink gets built by bartenders is preposterous/almost a lose-lose proposition and we’ll examine the merits of different preparation methods in a future installment).

The whole ordeal got me thinking about making my own ginger beer again. I had dismissed it at the start of things as not being a great return on the time and labor, but now I’ve come this far and can’t afford to leave that path unexplored. Perhaps a niche rum like one of Hamilton’s paired with a homemade ginger beer or syrup is the answer I’ve been searching for.

New Horizons

So I’m setting out for new climes. I’m thinking less about the Bermudan origins of the drink and more about the Great Red Spot on Jupiter in terms of where I want to go. As for the limes, it’s almost lime season in Los Angeles again and I’m lucky enough to source them from my front yard.

For tempest-inspired drinks, we can think bigger. Photo: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

I look forward to returning with new insights for the next installment. Nunc est bibendum.⁴

1. In the 2010s, this really meant Whaler’s Dark Rum from Trader Joe’s.

2. I have to state for posterity that Gosling’s owns a trademark on “The Dark ‘N’ Stormy” - a spelling variant in 2023 that is as stupid to read as it is to say out loud. Some attorneys for this family-owned rum business seemingly once bullied a blogger into posting a retraction of his suggestions that you try making this widely known and pervasive cocktail with other rums that aren’t Gosling’s. I’ll reiterate his statement for clarity: “Dark ‘N Stormy ®” is a registered trademark owned by Gosling’s Export (Bermuda) Limited for a cocktail made with GOSLING’S Black Seal® rum and ginger beer.” Idiotic, and a topic I may return to in a future installment of this series (depending in part on how Gosling’s counsel governs itself).

3. For comparison purposes, I’ll just say that most airport lounges can make these, but airport lounges are in a different game/catering to a completely different kind of drinker.

4. Who knew the Michelin Man went so hard? Here he is drinking shards of glass in 1898.